


you can't go home again

by silklace



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: M/M, Nightmares, Pre-Slash, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-15 23:58:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11816928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silklace/pseuds/silklace
Summary: The sound, when Thomas hears it, is like the dull slide of a wardrobe door opening and closing over and over, wood catching against wood.





	you can't go home again

The sound, when Thomas hears it, is like the dull slide of a wardrobe door opening and closing over and over, wood catching against wood. It takes him a moment to realize he’s hearing anything at all, so easily does it fade into the background murmur of an enormous house settling in for the long stretch of night. 

Thomas pauses with his last cigarette of the day against his lip, listening. A frisson of alertness wraps around his spine, yet he feels suddenly exhausted. He considers his palm with its clean circumference of scar tissue, the creaking, painful sound still pulling at the edges of his awareness. 

The servant’s bathroom is cold and lit only by a sliver of grey moonlight from the high, narrow window in the corner. The light falls on Jimmy’s blonde hair like water on stone, and Thomas feels his fingers jump reflexively next to his thigh. 

“Again, Jimmy?” Thomas calls softly from the doorway. The hair on the back of his neck rises, and he wishes he hadn’t already removed his jacket and vest. His braces hang loosely around his waist. 

“Go away.” Jimmy’s voice is raked over, the skin around his eyes red and blotchy. Knees pulled up to his chin, he looks small and impossibly youthful. 

“Alright,” Thomas says, and takes a step closer, watching the tense line of Jimmy’s hunched shoulders. 

“I mean it this time,” Jimmy rasps. His knuckles are white, fingers tight on his knees. He doesn’t look at Thomas. 

Thomas drops into a crouch a few steps away. He estimates, without really noticing, that it’s about the same span of distance that would exist if you were to press a Lee-Enfield rifle nuzzle against the small of someone’s back. “Let me put you back to bed, love.”

“Don’t fucking call me that.” The cant of his voice is dangerous. Thomas wonders if it’s the same nightmare he had last night, a distorted memory of a day in France when one minute he’d been talking with his friend about the deplorable state of the trench rations, and the next had looked over to find a hole in his friend’s face, just under his left eye. The bullet had shattered on impact, and Jimmy had spent the next day pulling slivers of white bone from his hair. The first time he’d told Thomas about that, he’d shuddered so violently that his teeth had jarred and clattered, the sound reminding Thomas of the click of rat’s nails against dirt as they fled flooded trenches. 

“I’m sorry, love,” Thomas says, because he’s never been able to stop himself. 

“I’m not your love,” Jimmy snarls, knuckling hard into the soft meat of his thighs. “I’m nobody’s love.” Thomas can see now that his eyes are swollen already, and red-rimmed. 

“Well, I love you, Jimmy,” he says. When Jimmy makes a wrenched, despairing sound, Thomas says more softly, “I can’t help it.”

Jimmy says nothing, his chest rising and falling. Thomas watches, waiting, until the movement of his breath is slow and even again, by which time his knees have gone numb from the icy floor. He shifts, seeking some relief, and Jimmy’s hand jumps out. 

“Don’t go,” he says, barely audible with his mouth pressed into his shoulder, as if he wished he’d muffled the words before they’d been released. 

“I won’t.”

Jimmy drops his hand onto the floor, palm up, and Thomas curls his own fingers around it, holding him loosely and with extraordinary care.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feedback/comments welcome and adored. <3


End file.
